Hail Damage on Lily Bulbs & What to do.

The lilies are growing very fast on the home farm despite the cold and wet weather for the past several weeks.  If it stops raining today,  Bob will spray fungicide because a few plants are showing the telltale brown spots of Botrytis on their leaves because we do not want the fungus to progress beyond just a bit of cosmetic discoloration. In severe cases leaves will turn brown and crispy and bulb growth stops because the lilies are not able to photosynthesize.   If  you grow Roses, spray your Lilies with the same formula should you be experiencing either cold and wet - or hot and humid conditions.

IMPORTANT:  If you have bruised leaves from a recent bout of sleet or hail stones - spray a good copper based fungicide ASAP - you might not notice damage right away, but the bruises will open the leaves to fungus.  Look for "wet-looking" darker colored spots on the leaves now; later if Botrytis occurs those spots will turn brown and have clear centers.  Cut off any broken flowers and DO NOT cut back damaged stems, you want to maintain as many leaves as possible, and even a leafless green stem will help to nourish the lily bulb this summer.

 

Our Fall 2012 catalog is expected to be in the office for processing within the next two weeks and we expect it will arrive in mailboxes by July 4th across the USA.  We have already uploaded most of the lily bulbs in that catalog to our website a few days ago, so you can have a sneak peek before it is mailed and begin plotting new acquisitions.

Fall 2012 Catalog cover

The cover photo is of a lily we trialed two years ago.  The original name was "Cooper's Crossing" but the clone was renamed "Easy Salsa" in Holland.  This is an Asiatic lily with NO POLLEN, which means as a cut flower there is no need to remove the anthers before bringing the stems indoors.  The blooms are 4 to 5 inches across and the color is simply outstanding in the garden. There will be a riot of color later this month because these bulbs are planted near Lilium pardalinum that tends to bloom about the same time and has already been uploaded because the stems are lush and loaded in buds.

Lilium pardalinum comes in all shades of orange.

Although not in the fall catalog, we expect to have Lilium martagon clones uploaded to the website in a few weeks as well.  When most of the fields in both Washington and Oregon are beginning to bloom, we count the stems to estimate harvest and if there are enough surplus bulbs after our propagation needs, those figures are uploaded to our office database computer and we begin entering orders into our system.

Click to go to Web-only bulbs - including 'Exhibition-size'

Did you see the 'Exhibition-size' lilies (Including 'Timezone' shown below) on our website?  Some of the stems this year are larger than a 25 cent coin and if the bulbs do not decide to "divide" due to a cool summer, they will be shipped this October - no need to wait until after our winter harvest to plant.

Order ASAP however, because if the bulbs do split instead of growing larger, the earliest paid orders are filled first with the big bulbs.  We can't glue two together to make more!

'Time Zone' - looking forward to July